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So my car just broke down... the radiator literally blew its top and then the steam and coolant somehow caused arcing from the ignition coils... and that started an engine fire... which i had to put out with my shirt whilst being scalded by steam >_<

Apparently I do not have the willpower to avoid the internets and playing rpg's... so I am back. I dunno what I want to do or what games I want to play atm... but I want to do something. I'm bored and creatively starved.

In my game, even though there is no Raise Dead ritual, that does not mean I don't allow my characters to come back. With that said, it is only if I (The DM) feel benevolent to give them a way to come back to life...or sneak a Water of Life inside one of their backpacks. ^_^

But, if they died because they were stupid, not because of bad luck, they stay dead.

I think raising the dead should be a difficult endeavor, requiring rare reagents, and penalizing the raised for quite some time-- a permanent level lost IN ADDITION TO other penalties that slowly fade as the character's soul and body heal from the ordeal.

That said, there are also many cases where -10 doesn't need to mean death-- DMs are allowed to fudge the rules. Common literary tropes, such as Never Found the Body, can be a great way to bring a character back 'from the dead' without having him actually die. Almost every good action novel has something like this happen.

Not bad seems a pretty good extrapolation of dnd to mass combat. Just a couple of questions what about reach weapons eg: pikes vs shorter melee weapons which were a pretty good advantage in such combat. And how does encircle work exactly? can a smaller group encircle a larger group and what does changing formation do exactly?

I did give reach weapons (such as polearms) a higher attack bonus then melee weapons. I figured it was appropriate because generally polearms cost more and do more damage. However it is kind of subjective because polearms aren't always practical or necessary. Polearms are used best as a defensive weapon to ward off cavalry. In a melee battle, polearms would only hold an advantage at the start of the battle (when the unit wielding them is held in formation).

On the topic of formations themselves, well, there are many but the basic ones are pretty simple. The advantage of formations depends on the situation and the enemy. In any case they are a critical part of mass combat strategy. To "encircle" an enemy would require a force of at least of equal size that is a good observation.

I won't get into specifics about all these little details yet, the idea of these rules is to make mass combat faster so players take prescience of the fluid nature of battle. These rules should reward players who prepare a better strategy and make better preparations in general. After all, when hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives are at stake you want to rely on everything but die rolls to ensure victory.

I think Tsun Tsu said, "The only battles worth fighting are battles that are won before they begin."

Adventurers, in the classic sense, break into the homes of others, kill them, take their stuff, and revel in it. Most are self-righteous and overconfident. This career path should, in most cases, have a short and violent road. PC's are not exceptions by default, only in action. And i say NPC's are no different. They make their choices in where they live, their allies, and how they develop themselves. I have a lot in my campaign that are more powerful and longer lived than the PC's - it gives the PC's themselves a symbol - something to strive for, to get to a point and "get out of the business" - that is "winning" in role-playing (in a sense - the only one i can see that matters to the character).

Good point. Raise Dead hasn't come up in my game for a long time... I have some ideas about it though. I was thinking it would be interesting to allow raise dead but penalize the character somehow for it... like perhaps they take ability damage, or take negative-levels, or a percentile for an alignment shift or madness... etc. etc. Raise dead could be interesting if it just wasn't a simple spell that goes *poof* your alive again!

Hey, Scarma. Thanks for sharing your story. I have had a similar, yet also entirely different, string of events that has led to less-than-achieved dreams. I would like to note something: I think you're a great guy, especially in the ways I deem important. You are smart, entertaining, clever, insightful, and even uplifting at times, and I'm glad to have you around.